Sympathy
by Kei Tree
Summary: Jareth at his angsty best...


AN: Yeah, a song fic! *ducks rotten fruit* They're fun once in awhile. Its not like anyone   
reads the lyrics anyway... LOL Umm, this vaguely follows the main scenes in the movie from the   
ballroom onward... the ball, the stairs, the end, the party, etc...  
  
Disclaimer: Lyrics are from the Goo Goo Dolls and their new album Gutterflower, which rocks   
in all sense of the word. I own neither them, such a pity, nor Jareth, ahem, Labyrinth.  
  
"I'm sorry, I'm not home right now... Just leave a message in the box and I'll try to update   
as soon as possible. Thank you."   
  
  
  
************************************** Sympathy ***********************************  
  
  
*Stranger than your sympathy  
This is my apology  
I'm killing myself from the inside out  
And all my fears have pushed you out*  
  
  
You twirl in my arms, like some fallen Cinderella. You're no princess Sarah, you're too real   
for that. A princess wouldn't, couldn't, be so warm in my arms, so alive. So real. Like some   
kind of cherished beacon calling me home, only to no home I've never known. And yet, something   
in you draws me so strongly.  
  
Too strongly.  
  
And I'm sorry because you're not that princess. Because you're not cold, and because I am.   
Because you never knew what it was to be held by living ice and now, now you'll crave the   
winter like I crave the blazing sun.  
  
I see the knowledge gleaming in your once innocent eyes... See the pain and half born epiphany   
flare and bloom until your beauty is almost too much to bear, and the monster you made me   
overshadows the man.   
  
With a cry, both body and soul, you wrench yourself away, from me and all my empty heartfelt   
promises, all my sincere lies. You shatter the shared dream as you claw yourself free, leaving   
me broken and alone.   
  
  
*I wish for things that I don't need  
All I wanted  
And what I chase won't set me free  
All I wanted  
And I get scared but I'm not crawling on my knees*  
  
  
The song pours from my lips and bitterly, fiercely guarded heart. I don't need love foolish   
one, foolish me, but I want it so badly. I could live forever without love but I don't want   
to. Damn you and me- I don't want to.  
  
Chained and bound and gagged by passion... I would tame myself for you. I would accept the   
gilded cage.  
  
There's longing on your face, your childish, angelic face, and confusion too. So young... So   
damn young. I won't crawl to you.  
  
I may spill my soul, my dreams, into your hands but I won't place my life. You don't have to   
meet me halfway Sarah but I WON'T crawl to you, not even for your love!  
  
  
*Oh yeah everything's all wrong yeah  
Everything's all wrong yeah  
Where the hell did I think I was*  
  
  
And so we end it... this game of lives and hearts. You're frightened and so terribly alone. I   
can see that in you as well lovely one.  
  
This wasn't how I meant it to be. You're stronger by far than I would have been. Thirteen   
hours and you've destroyed my world in every sense of the word. And you don't even know it.   
  
But I won't lose you Sarah. You'll crawl to me if need be!  
  
  
*Stranger than your sympathy  
I take these things so I don't feel  
I'm killing myself from the inside out  
Now my head's been filled with doubt*  
  
  
My words entrance you, ensnare your mind with my promises of a mortal's paradise, dreams granted.   
  
And yet, yet... You are so unlike anything that I have ever seen before. Somehow I know that   
we're not going to get happily ever after.  
  
  
*It's hard to lead the life you choose  
All I wanted  
When all your luck's run out on you  
All I wanted  
You can't see when all your dreams are coming true*  
  
  
Molded to your image of villainous perfection... Beloved and desired and, in the end, rejected.  
  
I am your prince Sarah- untouchable marble refined and made flesh and blood for your benefit   
alone. Do you live to cause me pain? Or simply yourself?  
  
Blinded by mortal truth, by mortal loves, you turn away.   
  
Paradise scorned.  
  
Dreams betrayed as two hearts, too wary to love blindly, hate without a fear for their aching   
pride.  
  
  
*Oh yeah it's easy to forget yeah  
You choke on the regrets yeah  
Who the hell did I think I was*  
  
  
I watch as the night's revelers slips away, back to my realm, back to a land ruled by magic and   
a lonely, lonely prince, King.  
  
I watch as the shadows steal across the planes of your face to paint your eyes and full, soft   
mouth in darkness. Watch as silent, unnoticed tears slip from your wavering gaze. They gleam   
like unblemished pearls, soft in muted moonlight as your heavy mind weighs the chances you took,   
and the ones you didn't.  
  
Regrets dear Sarah?  
  
I apologize for those too.  
  
Who am I to presume to grant your dreams? I am a prince dear one, not an angel. Not a   
bleeding angel.   
  
  
*Stranger than your sympathy  
All these thoughts you stole from me  
I'm not sure where I belong  
Nowhere's home and I'm all wrong*  
  
  
Where to go when duty and love rent you in two? I am a King and I am a man and I have no home.  
  
Nowhere to rest my wearied self. No place to sleep and dream.  
  
Home waits in the unsullied corners of my Labryinth and the hot, hot fire of your embrace.  
  
But I long for both and neither and no world may hold all of what I have become. All that I   
want so desparately to be.   
  
  
*And I wasn't all the things  
I tried to make believe I was  
And I wouldn't be the one to kneel  
Before the dreams I wanted  
And all the talk and all the lies  
Were all the empty things disguised as me  
Yeah stranger than your sympathy stranger than your sympathy*  
  
  
Shadowed and broken...  
  
A knavish King. A lovestruck villain. A weeping statue.   
  
And proud. Too proud to bend. Too proud to forgive. Too proud to let you in, even if you'd   
have me now. Even if I still cared. But I'm so damn cold I'm numb. Blindingly numb. And you   
have your pride too Sarah. You're not a princess but I've killed enough of your fire to allow   
you your pride.  
  
Love me Sarah for who you wanted me to be. Hate me, for being who you loved.  
  
Know that I am both and nothing of the man you call Goblin King.  
  
You gave me life dear child, life and purpose and dreams. Bless and curse you- you in all your   
wide eyed innocence and warmth, promised me my own impossible, feverent dreams.  
  
Left to nothing but hate and ice I'm hollow, empty, dead.  
  
And you know what's the strangest thing of all about the twisted web we weave and dance along?   
That for all of our pride I can say that I'm sorry. That you can offer me sympathy. And that   
we can both be lonely as night draws curtains across the world to cast us in darkness that   
alternates between scorching heat and bitter cold.  
  
That we could have loved.  
  
And that we don't.  
  
I'm sorry Sarah. So sorry, and that's the strangest thing indeed. 


End file.
